Good Sales Now, Bad Deals Later?

By Sarah Morgan

iStockphoto

Holiday deals and discounts may not be as spectacular as previous years, analysts say, because many are already shopping up a storm.

Consumers bought more stuff in October than economists expected, the latest in a steady stream of increases for core retail sales. Economists expected October’s retail sales data to be essentially flat after a strong reading in September, but the Commerce Department reported this morning that sales were up 0.5% from the previous month, led by a 3.7% jump in electronics and appliance store sales. Core retail sales have now been up every month since August 2010, “an unprecedented performance,” according to Ian Shepherdson, the chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.

To be fair, part of the increase in electronics sales may be attributable to the release of the new iPhone 4S, Shepherdson says.

Still, the data is better news for the overall economy than it is for consumers looking to score deep discounts this holiday season as they have the past couple of years, experts say. “I think retailers are beginning to ask themselves, do we really need to slash prices this holiday season?” says Rafi Mohammed, a pricing strategist and the author of “The 1% Windfall.” Some retailers have already started to pass on slightly higher prices to consumers following an uptick in inflation earlier this year, and consumers are still buying, says Brian Sozzi, a retail analyst at Wall Street Strategies. “When the consumer has had to buy they’ve bought,” Sozzi says.

Depending on what’s on their shopping lists, some consumers may want to hit the stores now, says Dan de Grandpre, the CEO of DealNews.com. Retailers are moving deals up earlier in November, and many stores are offering their Black Friday prices now, de Grandpre says. “If retailers have aggressive promotions early in the season, a consumer would be foolish to wait until Black Friday,” he says. In particular, major appliances are on sale now, while low-end laptops and TVs will probably see their deepest discounts over Thanksgiving weekend, and Apple traditionally offers its only sale of the year on Black Friday, he says. People shopping at big-box stores for high-end laptops or feature-laden TVs should wait until after Thanksgiving, however, because those items tend to go on sale later in the season, he says.

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Welcome To My Blog!
I am a 20 something girl, currently enrolling into Graduate School. I blog(obviously), take photographs, draw, travel, and continuisly improve my knowledge of different languages.
This blog serves more as a logbook filled with my toughts, my photographs, my trips and travels, my random sketches, my ideas and tips for you, some quotes as well as some writing related talksamong other things.
This a piece of me.
From Me to You.
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A Very Nest December to You.
My first time drawing a nest and I think it is not too bad (i’m actually more liking the tree ). Maybe next time it will turn out much better than this, but for now it will have to do. I know Daniel was joking when he requested this drawing, but I had nothing better to do anyway, plus you always need to know how to draw a nest, don’t you? SO this is my first attempt at it. I used three mediums for this: gouache for the ‘snow’, a brush-pen for the tree and also crayons for the nest, background and falling snow. Because my desk lamp is very yellow, the image didn’t really look well, so I applied a filter in CS5. And that’s it! Your drawing of the day
Wishing you all a Very Nest December!
PS: Want to request a drawing and see how bad well I perform? Get typing in the comments below В or tweet me at @kalieta
05
Dec
2012
AUTHOR
kalieta
CATEGORY
Sketch $ Co.
COMMENTS
6 Comments
TAGS
drawing, nest, request, snow, tree, winter
NOEL.
Seems like I have taken too long before making a proper celebration of December! To make amends, I decided to post one Christmas related drawing/art made by yours truly, here on the blog until the 25th. If you’d like to request a drawing, now is the time! Just drop me a request in the comments below or on my twitter or facebook page and I will get to the business!
While we are talking about December events, check these events hosted by my blogger mates
Helene is hosting a new installment of her Advent Calendar filled with digital goodies for you to download!
Heather is doing a 24 Days of Tea series, where she is reviewing the teas that were part of the David’s Tea Advent Calendar. For those of you who love tea, her guides will help you decide on what tea to get for the season, so check her out.
Well I hope you’re enjoying every day of this fabulous month!
04
Dec
2012
AUTHOR
kalieta
CATEGORY
Sketch $ Co.
COMMENTS
8 Comments
TAGS
Christmas, drawing, recommendations
The Dutchess.
Yesterday as I was watching (for the tenth time?) The Dutchess, I felt the urge to sketch her. Keira Knightley is such a great actress, that now I always watch her movies just for theВ pleasure of seeing her act rather than for the plot itself.В I have also finished my SATC marathon (that includes the movies) and might go back and sketch each girl in their best outfits. I think that would be fun I just need to find a way to color them, since I am not too good with colors. These sketches are not done yet – I will be coming back to them in the future. When I do,I will post the update here for you to see.
Also, I finished 3 out of 5 of my Currently Reading list for the month of November. I started Catherine The Great and decided to allocate it more time since it is a nonfiction and I like to ponder on details (such as dates, places). I will be reading it in parallel with another book that I started: Catch-22. I couldn’t finish Winter’s Tale as i found the narrative too long and quite boring. I will give it a rest and see later if I am more up for the reading or not. Which means that after Catch-22 I’ll be posting a new list of books I plan on reading for the month of December!
What movie have you recently seen?
What have you been up to lately?
01
Dec
2012
AUTHOR
kalieta
CATEGORY
Sketch $ Co.
COMMENTS
2 Comments
TAGS
keira knightley, the dutchess
Chocolate Chip Cookie in a Bowl.
It is a rainy day today in Douala and as I was reading my current book (This is how you lose her) and having my sixth cup of hot tea, I felt like I needed to have something sweet to go with it. And since I have a bit of a cold, I did not feel like cooking. Luckily for me, I was able to get the cooking of my dessert done in less than five minutes. If everything was as easy to do as this chocolate chip cookie recipe, I am sure my life would be much simpler, wouldn’t you agree?
Although this recipe is quick and pretty good, I don’t think it willВ ever fully replace the old fashioned oven baked cookies. But it is a good alternative for those who don’t have time, or who hate cooking, or worse; don’t have an oven!
Print
Chocolate Chip Cookie in a Bowl.
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Prep time: 2 mins
Cook time: 1 min
Total time: 3 mins
Serves: 1
Ingredients
1 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp granulated sugar
1 pinch salt
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
&frac14; cup of all purpose flour
dark chocolate chips
Instructions
In a large mug or bowl combine melted butter, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and egg yolk.
Mix throughly.
Add flour and mix again, until the mixture is homogeneous.
Add as many chocolate chips as you want.
Place bowl/mug into microwave and heat for 1 minute (60 seconds).
Notes

You can use any type of chocolate chips.
If you feel like your cookie is not ready yet, nuke it for another 10 seconds.

About Pay Dirt

Pay Dirt examines the millions of consumer decisions Americans make every day: What to buy, how much to pay, whether to rave or complain. Lead written by Quentin Fottrell, the blog examines these interactions, providing readers with news, insight and tips on shopping, spending, customer service, and companies that do right – and wrong – by their customers. Send items, questions and comments to quentin.fottrell@dowjones.com or tweet @SMPayDirt.